Monday, March 28, 2011

BD impressions: Tangled

10:33 PM / BD Impressions / Comments13 Comments

BD Impressions
Blu-ray

The film: A number of Disney features have had what are known in the trade as "troubled productions", but TANGLED has got to rank as one of the rockiest of them all. Originally set to be the directorial debut of veteran animator Glen Keane, it started out during the Michael Eisner era as a straight adaptation of the Rapunzel story - and indeed its title, until shortly before its release, was RAPUNZEL - then became a wise-ass "ironic" retelling called RAPUNZEL UNBRAIDED to cash in on the success of the loathsome SHREK movies. That version was in turn canned, Keane stepped down due to health concerns, and the project finally saw the light of day somewhere in the region of a decade after we first heard about it. Whew!

I mention all this because there's really nothing about TANGLED (still can't get used to that name change) that suggests such a lengthy and complicated history. On the contrary, it's hard to shake the impression that it feels a lot like a side project that was put into production quickly, with its directors (Byron Howard and Nathan Greno) largely adhering to the Disney book of animation clichés. It's slick, inoffensive and an enjoyable enough way to kill 100 minutes, but like the previous year's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG it takes no risks whatsoever, and unlike that film it lacks the hand-drawn charm that really made it feel as if Disney was returning to its roots. The songs are entirely forgettable (was Alan Menken having an off-day or something?), the leading man (around whom most of the marketing has focused, despite it being Rapunzel's story) is just a bland copy of Disney's earlier Aladdin, the chameleon sidekick is irritating and largely pointless...

I can't say I disliked it, and there were moments that made me smile, but while watching it I found myself unable to shake the feeling that the supposed return to form that has occurred since John Lasseter and co took over the running of Walt Disney Animation Studios is to some extent a self-perpetuated marketing strategy rather than any real turnaround in terms of the quality of their output. (On the other hand, the last film released before Lasseter came on board was CHICKEN LITTLE...) Year by year, placing the output of Disney and Pixar side by side - BOLT vs. WALL-E, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG vs. UP, TANGLED vs. TOY STORY 3 - it's pretty clear that the latter remain the undisputed kings of feature animation, and that Disney has yet to put out anything as fresh, witty and original as its one true gem of the 21st century so far, LILO & STITCH. 6/10

Image quality: Barring some compression artefacts in a small number of scenes (see Example 8), this is reference quality material. Any criticisms are entering into the realm of nit-picking, but this wouldn't be a Land of Whimsy review without nit-picking, would it? It falls just shy of perfection, and I can't imagine anyone having any serious complaints. 9.5/10

Tangled
studio: Buena Vista; country: USA; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.78:1 (theatrical 1.85:1)

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13 Comments

1. FoxyMulder said:

The original Shrek wasn't that bad, nor was the first sequel, the third one though was lacking a lot and i might agree with you on that one but can you really use such strong words to describe Shrek, seriously!

Anyway i liked the first two, haven't seen the fourth one.

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:12 AM)

2. ChuckZ said:

Does anyone else see little green dots in the screenshots? Or is IE9 with GPU rendering retarded?

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:34 AM)

3. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Foxy:

"but can you really use such strong words to describe Shrek, seriously!"

I just did, didn't I? :D

Afraid I'm not a fan of the SHREKs... though admittedly I've only seen the first two.


Chuck:

Hmm... not seeing anything like you're describing, and I've checked in both Chrome and IE9. Is it affecting all the shots or just specific ones?

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 12:42 AM)

4. ChuckZ said:

It's not showing up in either Firefox or Chrome.

Tick the GPU rendering option in IE9 and see if it appears.

It affects all the shots. They even appear on CinemaSquid.

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 1:43 AM)

5. FoxyMulder said:

I'm not much of a fan of CGI animation, but its staying and some of it is fun, i like most animation though, be it from Studio Ghibli or Don Bluth or Disney or Dreamworks, the one thing that really puts me off Pixar is Randy ( bloody ) Newman singing some song either in the movie or during the end titles, i find them to be very annoying.

You know Watership Down is out, i wish they would release The Plague Dogs as well, bit downbeat and sad that film and it would likely need a new master struck to be any good on blu ray.

Now talking about Randy Newman, he composed an absolutely fabulous score for The Natural, so it's not his music work but rather his singing i dislike and unfortunately Pixar usually has him on most of their releases.

Regarding Internet Explorer 9, i'm using it and everything looks fine to me, as far as i'm aware it's using the GPU rendering option as i have checked internet options and advanced and the box is unticked, i ticked though and let it run via software and everything is fine, i deleted cookies just to get a fresh page, so it's fine either running via software or GPU rendering, at least on my computer.

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 6:09 AM)

6. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Chuck:

Could it be a video driver problem? I run IE9 with GPU rendering enabled and haven't had any issues.


Foxy:

Randy Newman composed the music to just over half of Pixar's movies - TOY STORY 1, 2 and 3, A BUG'S LIFE, CARS and MONSTERS INC. Of these, if memory serves me correctly, he only actually sings in TOY STORY 1 and 3 and A BUG'S LIFE. The rest of Pixar's films have been composed by either Thomas Newman or Michael Giacchino.

I didn't realise WATERSHIP DOWN was out - thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to see about getting a copy. Seems to be a German-only release at the moment?

THE PLAGUE DOGS is an incredibly powerful film and for that reason I can't see myself ever being able to bring myself to watch it again.

(Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3:49 PM)

7. Greg M said:

I hope we'll be getting your opinion on the Don Bluth productions that are on their way to Bluray.

(Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 12:40 AM)

8. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Greg:

I'm not much of a Bluth fan, but I'll probably pick up THE SECRET OF NIMH at some point.

(Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 7:04 AM)

9. Damelon said:

Michael, I was actually just going to ask if you were going to review 'The Secret of Nimh' and 'The Last Unicorn'... I hope you do!

(Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 9:17 AM)

10. Foxymulder said:

I think Watership Down is only out in Germany at the moment. It's Warner which could mean average transfer or if you're lucky it could be better than average, who knows, i suspect it'll get a release in the UK this year.

As for Don Bluth, i'm waiting to hear if the transfer of Anastasia ia any good, it should be since just like Disney's Beauty and the Beast they have digital files of it rather than having to rely on a film print transfer, mind you Twentieth Century Fox can sometimes be hit and miss.

I ordered Silent Hill from Amazon.fr yesterday, probably arriving tomorrow ( likely since they are super fast ) i already have the German edition but i was checking cap-a-holics and couldn't believe just how much better the new French edition looks, the German version looks crap compared to this new version which i believe has been supervised and approved by Christophe Gans, i just mention that as i know you had the old Sony edition.

Oh and yes a comment did get eaten by the spam filter, twas a link to a City Of The Living Dead comparison which showed the Arrow blu ray had been brightened up and had some weird streaking going on in some scenes.

(Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 8:49 PM)

11. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Damelon:

THE SECRET OF NIMH is a distinct possibility. THE LAST UNICORN... probably not.


Foxy:

Didn't realise there was a French SILENT HILL BD. I had a look on Caps-a-Holic and could only find a DVD comparison, no BD. Any chance of a link?

My brother had the US BD briefly, but sold it when I got the German HD DVD, which was a big improvement from a compression standpoint. I still think it's pretty close to perfect, with only the elevated blacks ruining things. If the French release corrects this problem (and it would be the first version to do so, as far as I know), then I'll definitely need to pick up a copy.

I've had a look and it seems your post about the COTLD comparison has vanished into the ether. I suspect I may have deleted it when I did a spam clear-out. Hopefully it won't happen again - in future I'll probably only delete my spam once a week or so. Any chance you could repost the link?

(Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 4:01 PM)

12. FoxyMulder said:

I got my copy of the French edition of Silent Hill today, i'm taking some caps myself to compare, i looked at some key scenes and it looks to me like the black levels are very good, parts of the image which should be black are inky black and stand out distinct from other parts of the image.

Look at cap ten and you will notice that parts of the image are now inky black while the German edition looks dimmer and loses detail, this is true of a number of other scenes.

Cap 9 also shows this where detail is better and parts of the image which should be black are perfect ( to me ) look at her boots and the background behind her, subtle parts which are black are inky black.

Now some might look at cap 7 for instance and say it's too bright in the French edition, nope, that scene has lots of light from the ceiling, you just can't see it in that angle of the shot.

I think it's a massive improvement but i'm still a little concerned about the contrast levels on the new edition, i'll be checking that out in more detail, there are some scenes near the beginning where i want to check the skyline out to see if the blue skies are gone because of raised contrast, mind you even if there is raised contrast i feel many other things are improved with this release, also i do have a feeling this is a director approved transfer since Gans has done an audio commentary specifically for this release and only in French language.

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/index.php?art=&image=7&vergleich=silent_hill_bd1&lossless=#auswahl

Here are the City Of The Living Dead caps, check cap 1 and check out caps 2 and 5 for that smearing on the Arrow release.

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/index.php?art=&image=1&vergleich=city_of_the_living_dead&lossless=#auswahl


(Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 5:51 PM)

13. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Cheers for the links. You're right, the French SILENT HILL looks to be a big improvement from both a compression and a black level standpoint. I've gone ahead and ordered myself a copy.

As for CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, ye gods, I'd forgotten just how bad the compression was on the Arrow release (the first shot especially). I see what you mean about the streaking - on the right hand side of the frame, yeah?

(Posted on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:01 PM)

 
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